For the second consecutive year, Produce Marketing Association (PMA) participated along with PMA member companies Subsole, David del Curto, Cencosud, Gesex, Exser, Globar Reefers, Tuniche, Hortifrut and Envases Impresos Roble Alto as official sponsors of the Santiago Marathon, Chile's most important sports event of the year.
PMA Vice President of Global Business Development Nancy Tucker distributes fruit donated by Chilean growers to runners at the Santiago Marathon, April 3, 2016.
More than 28,000 runners replenished their energy in a healthy and natural way, enjoying different varieties of high quality fruit offered at PMA stands located at the 10K, 21K and 42K finish lines with the slogan "Corre por lo Sano/Running for Health.”
Nancy Tucker, Produce Marketing Association's vice president of global business development commented this is the only sports event sponsored by PMA members, and it has achieved excellent results.
“PMA promotes increased fresh produce consumption, and this was a great opportunity for Chilean exporters to provide a healthy snack and show the quality of the fruit produced in Chile. The warm welcome from the runners was truly amazing. They arrived at the finish line and ran straight to our stands to get the fruit they knew was ready and available for them,” said Tucker. “We are grateful to be a part of this joint effort with our members and a part of this Marathon."
The 103,000 pounds of fruit donated was a large increase over the 2015 donation of 70, 547 pounds of fruit. New participating companies offered runners more quantity and variety.
Cristóbal Velasco, marketing manager for Envases Impresos Roble Alto and responsible for the fruit donation logistics for the Santiago Marathon, said that plums and strawberries were offered this year in addition to table grapes, bananas and apples.
“Two new exporters joined this year’s efforts,” said Velsco. “Tuniche participated with 15,432 pounds of plums and Hortifrut contributed 4,409 pounds of strawberries. Our goal is to continue incorporating new companies to this event, because it is a great opportunity to showcase Chilean fruit. That is why this year we wanted to increase the diversity of fruit available.
In the 2015 Santiago Marathon table grapes were athletes' favorite fruit. This year the amount of table grapes went from 35, 273 to 48,501 pounds.
The leftover fruit was donated to Red de Alimentos, a food bank which delivered the fruit to those in need. The cardboard boxes that contained the fruit were recycled.
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